


All Your Love (Will Be Exorcised)

by Just A Couple Of Death Priests (WalkOnThroughARedParade)



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/M, It's not necessarily all that angsty but Syx doesn't do angst like normal people, it's something of a backstory drop though!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 11:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18260591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkOnThroughARedParade/pseuds/Just%20A%20Couple%20Of%20Death%20Priests
Summary: 'Let me tell you of my love.My love has skin the colour of the deepest, darkest sky.My love bruises like a ripe peach.When he finds me, my love will kill me.Let me tell you of my love.'Alternatively; In Which Age Is A Funny Thing, And Grief Is Even Stranger.





	All Your Love (Will Be Exorcised)

The field she had chosen to become Kirrinford was a full three hours walk outside Sunderheim, accessed through deerpaths and by clambering over gates, half hidden behind trees and the odd hill or two.

When it had come down to it - come down to choosing where she’d attach her dear Elf’s title, where she’d eventually build the labyrinth of a manor house she’d invite him to live in, which he would politely in nervously refused once he’d had a wander inside and gotten lost enough times - she had picked this field, now with its dead circle of grass and funny statue of the goliath her new friends had lost, for three reasons.

Firstly, of course, for the price. It had been fallow when she’d come enquiring, left to grow weeds and wildflowers for a harvest or two before being used for wheat again, and the farmer who’d owned it hadn’t minded much being down a field. His son, he’d told her, had left to join the arcane college, and he was getting old anyway, and couldn’t make such a long trip so often any more.

She hadn’t cared, of course; but the lowered price had been nice.

Secondly had been for the location. Though there was a dirt track to reach it, winding precariously around hillocks after it departed from a better used path which led back toward the farm, it was still difficult to get to. If the charming enemy of her High Elf decided to pay a visit to his province, they would have a hard time finding it, and getting to it would be even more difficult, unless they were willing to trudge through hip-deep tangles of grass for part of the journey.

It was remote, and inexpensive, and secluded, and she had chosen this aspects for her High Elf companion and his beautiful wife. When she build their house, there would be an entire wing set aside for the raccoon she had given them on their wedding day, and she would hide paintings of Baz in every other room.

(It was hard to actively miss a person she’d only known for a little while, but she missed the opportunity Baz had presented. He had been an easy and willing tool of disruption. Such people were few and far between, and she could not just go around casting invisibility on everyone to see who used it well.)

The third reason had been for her; and, though she had her doubts she would tell anyone, had been what truly had her asking to buy the field in the first place.

Syx stood in the middle of little, square Kirrinford, and dropped her pack into the hip-high grass, before tipping her head back with a sigh, and staring up at velvet-darkness of the night sky, and the bright stars scattered across it.

_ Let me tell you of my love. _

It took a little effort to flatten a space in the grass, but once she had succeeded she laid herself down upon it, an almost-cushion beneath her back, and took a moment to get really comfortable, staring up at the sky, listening to the hum of crickets hiding in the plants around her.

Dis didn’t have crickets. Though there was some small, scraggly plantlife out in the wastes, and there was certainly vermin in the city and a kind of insect life, nothing made quiet chirping noises. No animals sang or called softly in Dis; nothing was gentle or quiet, nothing lulled and conveyed comfort and safety.

On one of their first trips to the Material Plane together, Pest had lead her into a forest that bordered the town they’d been there to deal with. They couldn’t have walked for more than minutes, but everything had been so  _ green _ , the air cool on her cheeks, and she had been able to hear water and birdsong, and it had felt like a lifetime spend in an alien world when he’d finally stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, and pointed out a den of foxes hidden at the base of a cluster of trees.

It had been the first time she’d seen anything like it, creatures with all that fur, with their liquid eyes gleaming in the darkness of the shadows beneath the trees, wet noses in pointed faces.

She’d wanted to touch one, but hadn’t wanted to hurt them; and all those years ago, that was all she’d known how to do, was hurt.

It was strange, thinking about it now, how Pestilence had been the one to show her such things. To show her the soft fragility of this Plane; to lead her to the gentle, quiet things that hid beneath the trees.

_ My love has skin the colour of the deepest darkest sky; velvet black like the fur of a panther; dark like ink spilled across parchment. _

She had surprised herself with the rings.

She’d started to notice how others wore them, humans who screamed and reached for each other on their visits, other Tieflings back home who held hands when they walked together. There had been men who had visited her mother, when she was small, who wore rings like that; but she had never told Pest he couldn’t fuck anyone else, so it had seemed irrelevant at the time.

The rings, though.

She retrieved hers from her bag, hidden in a secret pocket at the very bottom, and turned it thoughtfully in her fingers.

The dark, polished iron of the band was cold to the touch when she slipped it back onto her finger, but the tiny flakes of obsidian winked back at her, like the eyes of foxes in the dark. She thought of its pair, silver and moonstones, and how it had looked after she’d slid it onto Pest’s finger.

How he had frowned down at his hand, sweetly puzzled, and then looked at hers and her ring with slow, dawning comprehension; how the breath had shuddered out of him, and he’d threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head in a large hand and staring down at her.

_ Little light _ , he’d murmured, voice thick with either amusement or affection.

She hadn’t know which. She still didn’t.

_ My love bruises like a ripe peach. Broken veins flood beneath his skin and turn it indigo, and bring to light freckles like stars, on his cheeks and his shoulders and down his spine. _

She’d liked to bite him.

When they were older, and their marriage truly became one, she’d liked to sink her teeth into his skin. Not always hard enough to break skin, but enough to bruise, at his biceps and shoulders and up his throat, until the skin turned indigo with purple blood beneath it and the white freckles that were otherwise invisible on his skin were revealed.

Inexplicably, he’d seemed to think it weakness, the freckles and how easy it was to leave bruises on his lovely skin. She remembered how his brow had used to furrow, had creased in the middle and only smoothed at the press of her thumb, rubbing away the frustration.

She remembered the burning violet of his eyes when she’d told him she liked it. That more than the scars, more than the rings, she liked to claim him like this; with bruises on his shoulders, conjuring up stars meant only for her eyes.

_ My Pest _ , she’d crooned, only a little bit mocking,  _ made for me. Who needs the stars of the Material Plane when I have you? _

Syx felt the heat burn at the back of her eyes, tears she’d refused to cry for almost four years threatening to spill now, and did nothing to stop them.

_ Let me tell you of my love. Let me tell you all the things I know of him, and he knows of me. _

She could remember with easy clarity the timbre of Pest’s voice; the rasp of it against her collarbones, the soft crooning sound of it when he mocked or taunted. She knew every line of his face, every contour of muscle, every scar and blemish and birthmark. His skin was impossibly warm, and softer than velvet, and when she kissed his neck or the spot between his shoulder blades he shivered, a full-body gesture from his horns to his feet, and purred, low and rumbling like a happy displacer beast.

She knew that he’d never known his parents, and had been raised in the temple, and had been their best and brightest until she’d broken Constance’s collarbone when she was twelve, grinning at a priestess through bloody teeth while the girl she’d had wrapped around her little finger had screamed at her feet. She knew he’d watched her, before they met; had watched her when she’d trained, when she’d been at lessons, when she’d whispered into Vengeance’s ear until he’d beaten Fidelity almost to death.

She knew the weight of his hands around her throat, around her waist, around her wrists. She knew the taste of his lips and his tongue, and just how much pressure it took to break his skin with her teeth.

She knew what he looked like when he was angry, and when he was pleased. She knew how his expression creased when he concentrated, and how it relaxed and opened when he came.

Her skin  _ vibrated _ with the memory of sex with him; and she wrapped her fingers around her left arm, digging her fingernails into the smooth, unblemished skin of her forearm like she could claw off a layer and find what was missing beneath.

The tears finally overflowed, spilling out of the corners of her eyes and running into her hair.

All she had were memories, now. Memories, and a ring, and simmering rage deep in her chest every time she took a moment to think on how the physical evidence of her marriage, of her  _ Pest _ , had been stolen from her.

He knew her with as much intimacy and detail as she knew him, but she wasn’t- she wasn’t  _ her _ , any more.

Syx felt like she had been dragged kicking and screaming back into the body of a child she had never wanted to be again, like she was too large for the skin she was trapped in, and it had darkness like the tendrils of a great eldritch horror wrapping around her thoughts and her throat.

She wanted to  _ hurt _ things. She wanted this entire cursed  _ plane _ to hurt like she hurt.

“I want my  _ Pest _ ,” she whispered into the air, Infernal like fire on her tongue.

She would never go back, never return to that temple or the Goddess she honoured, but she wanted Pestilence. She wanted him here, even if the relief would only last for a second.

_ When he finds me, my love will kill me. _

They had been joking, the priestesses she’d overheard, crowded together in an alcove. Taking bets, she’d thought later. Which will win, black or white? Would either of them falter when faced with the will of the Goddess? Would it be bloody or more personal? What did they think it would sound like if Pestilence snapped Syx’s neck, or if she drove her spear through the soft skin of his belly?

Married acolytes who finish their training have two options; kill your spouse and be named Priest or Priestess, or  _ be _ killed.

They’d been a week from the end of their training when the Traveller had come to her, a murmur in her dreams. She’d left her Pest the day before they would officially be declared finished, and pitted against each other; had slipped from their bed with a last kiss pressed to his cheek, and run until her feet were bleeding and the Traveller told her to  _ stop _ .

When he found her, he’d kill her. All he’d ever wanted was to be High Priest of the temple, to prove to the Goddess who had raised him by default that his devotion was unmatched. The stories had all been of the two of them leading together, of course, but Syx was no fool, and she knew how people worked.

Her Pest loved her, but he’d kill her all the same.

...but would he?  _ Could _ he, with the ritual scars from their marriage erased, and her a child again, no longer the grown woman he’d been meant to fight?

Had the Nightstone taken that from him? Would her sacrifice no longer satisfy the Goddess of Misfortune, cruel and exacting bitch that she was?

She dug her nails harder into her skin, before letting go of her arm, breath shuddering out of her as she stared up at the sky, and the stars that only served to make her miss her husband more.

She’d left Dis with no intention of ever looking back; but now, with this curious change of events she couldn’t help but  _ think _ . But wonder, if she’d woken Pest the night she’d left, asked him to come with her, if he would have said yes, and they would be together now.

It would have tickled Pest, to help slay a dragon, and Icarus would have liked him. Icarus did not easily melt for a pretty face, but they would melt for her Pest.

She pressed her hands against her eyes, and clenched her jaw against the sob trapped in her throat.

_ Let me tell you about my love. Let me tell you about the softness of his touch, and all the blood his hands have dripped with, and how I ache for his touch, and how he will kill me if I don’t kill him first. _

Icarus would be missing her, by now. They had been spending the evening with one of their  _ sources of information _ , but by the time she got back it would be well past midnight, and they would worry. She was the last person who needed it, but they would worry regardless, her lovely bard. Her little project.

Pest would love that, too. Would grin down at her, call her  _ little light _ and tuck her curls back out of her face.

She remembered him taking her left arm in his hands, holding her wrist and elbow and kissing the star-shaped scars that sat silver on her skin, three marks he’d carved himself, just as she had carved matching stars into him.

Past, present, future.

Pest, Syx, and perhaps, one day…?

If she could not figure out a way to get herself back to her true age by the time the Sunderheim army were drawn out of the city, she’d cut the stars back into her arm herself. Pest had never demanded marital loyalty, but he was an integral part of her, and she’d not allow him to be erased from her skin so permanently.

Syx drew her hands away from her face, and blinked up at the stars; and an idea began to form in the back of her mind.

She wondered if Windsor’s useless father could procure a Sending spell scroll for her. Wondered if, with an invitation and a challenge to his claim on her life, Pest might bring a whole group of acolytes with him to support his claim on her.

She wondered if they might Shift directly into the castle, if she invited them.

A brief smile spread across her face, a cruel curl to her lips that had not graced her face in years, and she stretched out her arms, tangling her fingers in the grass around her, tears still spilling down her cheeks.

_ My love will come for me, if I call.  _

_ And if I fall, I will take this entire city to the ground with me. _


End file.
